Rajputs kill four and wound 16 Harijans in broad daylight in Gujarat village

Rajputs kill four and wound 16 Harijans in broad daylight in Gujarat village

Gun-toting Rajputs descended on a Harijan basti in broad daylight, killing four and gravely wounding 16.

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RAMESH MENON

Golana February 28, 1986

ISSUE DATE: February 28, 1986

UPDATED: January 22, 2014 12:42 IST

Nine years ago, a group of television producers and cameramen from the Indian Space Research Organisation in Ahmedabad pitched camp in Golana village of Kheda district to shoot a film series on the exploitation of Harijans. For the Harijans of Golana had shown they were different; they had asserted their economic independence and were united in fighting exploitation. They wrote the script for the film and acted out the roles, drawing on the grim real life experience of feudal oppression by land-owning Rajputs and of the kind of killings and burnings that held an entire community in terror.

That was the script. But life overtook art last fortnight when gun-toting Rajputs descended on a Harijan basti in broad daylight, killing four and gravely wounding 16. To resist meant certain death, yet many of the Harijans did and paid the price. But the brutal action did not cow the spirit which had united the Harijans at the height of the anti-reservation agitation; and as the news of the killings spread, over 4,000 Harijans converged on the little basti to show their solidarity.

The police soon swung into action and arrested 30 Rajputs. Many Rajputs fled Golana, fearing a Harijan backlash. And Amarsinh Chaudhary, the first backward-class chief minister of the state, was confronted by an angry and militant community when he visited the basti on Republic Day. His assertion that "justice will be done" hardly soothed their feelings. The memorandum they presented spoke louder than words: "Are we citizens of this country? If we are, we want to be allowed to live with dignity. We want nobody's pity, we just want our rights." And that was no plea but simply a proud statement.

The murdered Harijans

Till a decade ago, no Harijan in the village could cycle across any area where people from the higher castes lived; he had to carry the cycle on his shoulders. The wages for work were pitiful - barely Rs 2 for a day's toil in the Rajputs fields. So these poverty-stricken labourers got together and set up their own cooperative and gave themselves at least Rs 10 a day. As a natural consequence, the Rajput landlords had to hike their rates, for all the village Harijans made a bee-line for the cooperative. To add insult to Rajput injury, the state Government took over their surplus land under the Gujarat Agricultural Land Ceiling Act and handed over 60 acres to the cooperative. When the Rajputs refused point blank to surrender the land, the undeterred Harijans sent them a legal notice.

For the feudally-inclined Rajputs, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. So when the violence erupted last month, it was perhaps inevitable that those marked for death were the pillars of the cooperative. Pocha Punja Parmar. 39, the first to die, had built up a personal rapport with each and every member of the cooperative, explaining to them the intricacies of profits and expenses and the new areas of work taken up. His wife Daniben and live children are still in a state of shock, mute witnesses to the murder. Khoda Mitha, 45, a technical supervisor with the cooperative, had made the mistake of filing cases against two Rajputs under the Untouchability Act - they had beaten him up for having "defiled them" when his hand accidentally came into contact with their smoking pipes. He and his brother, Mohan Mitha, were clubbed to death. The rampaging Rajputs failed to get their hands on Pocha Kala, another of the Harijan leaders, so they simply shot dead his son Prabhudas, 22.

Destroyed home: leaders attacked

The choice of targets was proof, if that were needed, that the upper castes wanted to crush the Harijans' spirit and render them leaderless. Marginal farmer Vala Fula's home was set on fire and all that his wife could salvage from the blaze was her silver jewellery gifted to her at her marriage; but it is twisted and melted beyond recognition.

Pocha Kala put his finger on the nub of the problem: "All this happened because we had started living with dignity and had stopped bowing our heads. We broke tradition and we paid a price. This is only the beginning." While their morale has taken a beating, the Harijans are determined not to give up. "In fact," says Jivan Punja, a school teacher, "we have more strength than ever before."

Predictably, politicians and bureaucrats have descended on the hamlet in droves, promises have been made, relief sanctioned and development projects launched. But the question is: does such a heavy price have to be paid by the catalysts of change?

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